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Developmental Milestones – Three to Four YearsBy Natalie J. Dahl, M.S., CCC-SLP

In a child’s fourth year of life, speech and language skills are continuing to grow at a rapid rate. The child understands colors, shapes, pronouns, family members, and negation. He or she also begins rhyming, asking more questions, using appropriate grammatical structures, and is understood 70-80% of the time. Social skills are continuing to develop as the child interacts more with peers and adults. The following list shows behaviors that a child will probably exhibit throughout his or her fourth year of life. Every child is unique, and this list should be used as a general guide. If a child is not meeting the developmental milestones below, consider consulting with a speech-language pathologist to determine further action.

Three to Four Years – Receptive Language (Hearing/Understanding)• Understands approximately 1,200 words • Responds when you call his or her name from another room • Understands words for colors, such as green, blue, and red• Understands words for some shapes, such as square and circle• Understands positional words, such as in front, behind, up, down, top, bottom• Understands words for family members, such as sister, uncle, and grandma• Understands pronouns, such as his/her, he/she, we/they• Understands negation (i.e. “Which one isn’t on the table?”)• Follows a simple plot in a children’s storybook

Three to Four Years – Expressive Speech and Language (Speaking)• Uses approximately 800 words • Speech is understood approximately 70-80% of the time • Puts 4 words together; may make some mistakes (i.e. “I runned to the park.”)• Uses about 4 sentences at a time • Talks about what happened during the day• Uses pronouns, such as I, you, me, we, and they• Asks many questions, sometimes the same question several times within a few minutes • Begins to ask questions that start with is • Says rhyming words, like hat-cat• Starts to use /s/ on present tense verbs (i.e. “He walks.”)• Uses contractions won’t and can’t • Uses and• Uses plural words (i.e. cars, dolls)

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• Uses are, or contracted form, with plural nouns (i.e. “Kids’re playing outside.”)• Can look at pictures in a book and tell you a story in a simple way • “Stutters” less frequently • Pronounces the beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words

(except for consonant blends, such as “bl,” “fr,” “cr”)• Uses /k/ and /g/ sounds correctly, but /s/ may still sound “lispy” • /r/ and /l/ may be distorted • /v/, “sh,” “ch,” “j,” and “th” may still not be used correctly

Three to Four Years – Social Language • Uses eye contact more consistently during conversations • Initiates conversations• Makes comments or observations to specific people • Sits and attends to an activity for 10-15 minutes • Engages most often in motor-based play and building (i.e. going down the slide,

building towers), but also will participate and copy what other kids are doing

Resources:Hamaguchi, Patricia McAleer. 2010. Childhood Speech, Language & Listening Problems – 3rd Edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.“What should my child be able to do?” accessed November 12, 2019, https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/34/

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Using His, Her, & Their Fun Deck®

Understanding Negation Fun Deck®

Rhyme Time Picture Fish

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